


A Matter of Time

by toastersandrockets



Category: A Year Without a Santa Claus (1974), Rankin-Bass Holiday Specials, Rudolph's Shiny New Year (1976)
Genre: Found Family, Mythology - Freeform, Time Travel, a journey through the afterlife, the perils of nostalgia
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-14
Updated: 2020-12-16
Packaged: 2021-03-10 20:00:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,397
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28062810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/toastersandrockets/pseuds/toastersandrockets
Summary: The passage of time is the one certain thing in all the universe, and those years have to go somewhere when they're up. So, too, do human souls when the Reaper comes a-calling. For history teacher Maggie Githens, the Archipelago of Last Years is a wonderful afterlife indeed, but she soon learns that there is more to the islands than meets the eye. Rated T for language. CW for mentions of illness, death, and discussion of historical violence and bigotry.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 5





	1. Departure

Booth Street was awfully quiet for a Wednesday at lunchtime. There were no people about, and no cars in the road or vying for the precious few parking spaces that lined the curb. The bookshop and the café and the pharmacy, all usually filled with customers at this hour, stood empty, their lights off. An odd, peaceful silence hung over the street. It was as if the whole neighborhood had taken an afternoon nap.

Maggie walked along the brick sidewalk, mindful of the spots where pieces of it had come loose with age. She peered through the windows of the stores she passed. _All closed,_ she thought. _How strange. Is there a holiday I’ve forgotten?_ It wouldn’t be the only thing she had trouble remembering. Far from it. Her illness was aggressive and cruel. First it made her so tired that she couldn’t do much more than kick off her shoes and crawl into bed when she got home from school. Then it gave her pain that never went away no matter what drug cocktail the specialists threw at her. After the surgery, the treatments that failed to push the cancer into remission, and the sad weariness in the doctor’s eyes as he told Maggie that they’d done all they could and that she should get her affairs in order, the memory problems began. She forgot little things at first - where she set her keys down, what she’d eaten for breakfast that morning - but soon she couldn’t remember the name of her favorite radio station, or the homecoming cheers for the Northtown High football team. When her sister and nephew came to take her to the hospice, she didn’t know their names. The disease whittled Maggie down until she was a thin wisp of a woman sitting in a rocking chair, a nurse always by her side. They didn’t want her to be by herself, not when she was this close to the end.

Yet here she was, taking a stroll, alone. Maggie wasn’t sure what possessed her to shake off the blanket wrapped around her shoulders (she got so terribly cold, these days), put on a pair of slippers, and walk out the front door, right past the nurse. Come to think of it, Maggie didn’t recall the nurse making any objections to her leaving the hospice in such a fragile state. The woman simply sat on the sofa, hands folded, eyes downcast. It had been easy for Maggie to make her escape.

Now that she was outside, Maggie felt better than she had in a long time. The pain in her abdomen had stopped throbbing, and somehow she’d shaken off her fatigue like that musty old blanket. _I could walk the length of Northtown without breaking a sweat,_ she laughed to herself. _Betty and Nick will scream when they see-_

Betty and Nick. Her sister and nephew. Maggie remembered their names. She stopped in the middle of the sidewalk. Something screwy was going on. The empty street, those empty shops. Her sickness and sorrow gone and her memory returned. Perhaps it was a dream. She took a lot of naps. Maybe it was a miracle. Then again, miracles were usually reserved for religious types and little children who wished upon stars, not middle-aged women from the city.

Maggie crossed the street at the corner and stood before the neon-and-chrome beauty that was Irving’s Diner. Home of Teddy’s Famous Blue Plate Special and Miranda’s Marvelous Homemade Pies, gathering place of the great and the good, refuge of the work-weary. Maggie had spent many an afternoon seated at the counter, grading papers while nursing a cup of coffee. Old Man Teddy, may he rest in peace, let her regale him with the latest faculty drama. They laughed together at the school administration’s antics, which grew more absurd every year, and sighed in shared frustration at proposed cuts to the art and music programs. Teddy always had a few choice words at the ready whenever that subject came up. God, she missed him.

Irving’s Diner was more like home to Maggie than her own living room, and she almost wept in relief when she saw the Open sign hanging on the door. At least one thing was as it should be. She went inside.

The diner was as empty as everyplace else Maggie had seen that afternoon, yet the lights were on and the overhead fans whirred. A delicious smell wafted into the room through the open kitchen door, and she swore she heard the crackle of enough frying eggs to feed the whole Northtown High student body. “Ted, are you back there?” she called. The diner’s owner, son of the late Teddy, didn’t answer. Nor did Miranda, the place’s longest-serving waitress and pie sorceress.

Maggie walked up to the counter and sat down in her favorite spot, near the coffee maker. She leaned her elbows on the linoleum and rested her head in her hands. _A deserted city, a miracle cure,_ she thought, _and Ted isn’t behind the counter! Either my medication is making me hallucinate, or I’ve kicked the bucket._ Maggie didn’t believe in life after death, but she’d seen her latest test results. Her time was almost up. Had it already run out?

A _thunk_ of dishes being set on the counter made Maggie look up. She wasn’t sure who, or what, had brought them, but she decided she didn’t care when she saw the steaming mug of black coffee and the thick slice of Miranda’s blueberry pie. Maggie’s favorite. She looked to her left and to her right. Who else could it be for? She picked up a fork and began to eat. After months of hospital food, that slice of pie tasted so good that Maggie thought she’d gone to Heaven after all.

Maggie had almost finished the pie when the door opened and another woman walked into the diner. The woman was older than Maggie, tall and thin with white hair styled in a wavy updo. She wore a dark grey skirt suit and black pumps, as if she’d come to Irving’s from Northtown’s business district on her lunch break. Her heels clack-clacked on the floor tiles as she made her way to the counter and took the seat on Maggie’s right.

“How’s the pie?” the woman asked.

“Delicious,” Maggie replied, or tried to, around a mouthful of blueberry filling. She quickly took the last couple of bites and set her fork down.

“No need to rush, dear,” the woman said with a smile that showed the laugh lines around her mouth and eyes. “You have plenty of time.”

“I’m dead,” Maggie said.

“Afraid so. You’ve shuffled off the mortal coil, Margaret Githens.”

“How do you know my name?”

“It is my job, my passion, my sacred duty, to know all that I can about you, Margaret.”

“Please, call me Maggie.”

“Okay then, Maggie.” The woman blinked three times, and a manila folder materialized on the counter. Its tab bore Maggie’s full name, written in neat cursive.

Maggie shook her head, baffled by the sight. It didn’t seem possible, but until a few moments ago, she would have said the same thing about the afterlife. She supposed she’d have to get used to the impossible.

The folder contained a copy of Maggie’s most recent photo from the faculty section of the yearbook, along with a few pages of handwritten notes. The older woman picked them up and read, “Margaret Githens. Date of birth: November 4th, 1934. Date of death: August 17, 1988. Cause of death: ovarian cancer. Occupation: history teacher at Northtown High School. Survived by: a younger sister, Elizabeth Weisman, and a nephew, Nicholas Weisman.” She saw Maggie’s eyes widening in fear and laughed. “Don’t worry! I am not in the business of judging souls. I see you on your way, that’s all.”

Maggie thought for a moment. “You’re the Grim Reaper.”

The woman extended a wrinkled hand. “I go by that name. They also call me Thanatos, Mors, and Queen of Terrors. But Death will do just fine.”

Maggie shook Death’s hand.

“We’ll head out whenever you’re ready,” Death said. “Get you settled in. My colleagues at the Travel Agency will take great care of you.”

“Where am I traveling?”

“Not where, but when,” Death smirked. “The Archipelago of Last Years, where all those who pass make their home in the past!” She giggled at her own pun.

“You’re pulling my leg,” said Maggie.

“On my honor, I am not,” Death protested. “Years are living things, just as you were a short while ago. They are born in the January snows, reach middle age during the dog days of summer, and breathe their last as the clock strikes midnight on December 31st. Only they don’t die! Those of us who embody abstract concepts are a little sturdier than the average mortal. No, when a year’s time is up, they choose an island in the Archipelago to rule, and the island’s time stops in the ruler’s year for eternity, never creeping forward or crawling back.”

“That sounds rather...feudalistic,” Maggie said.

“Take it up with my brother. He’s the one who set the system running. Says it helps keep everything in tip-top, tick-tock shape.” Death rolled her eyes.

“Who’s your brother? God?” Maggie joked.

“Father Time.”

Maggie gave Death the are-you-serious look she used on students who’d forgotten their homework for the fifth day in a row. “Okay. So, when years pass, they go to the Archipelago.”

“Right.”

“And when humans die, we do the same.”

“Exactly.”

“How does that work? Do I get assigned to a random island, or do I get to pick? Can I leave my island if I don’t like it?”

“All of these things you shall learn in good time,” Death said with a mischievous smile. “The Travel Agency will explain everything.”

“In that case,” Maggie said, hopping off of her stool, “I’m ready to go.”

“Splendid!” Death cried. “Follow me.”

When they reached the diner’s entrance, Death laid a hand on Maggie’s shoulder and said, “There’s no turning back. Once you walk through that door, you’re officially on the other side.” She waved her free hand in the air, as if casting a spell.

“I understand.”

“Alright, then.” Death opened the door. Irving’s Diner disappeared behind them, and they stepped forward into the soft afternoon light.


	2. Arrival

A silvery mist descended on Booth Street, turning Maggie’s world the color of the sky before a snowstorm. The women crossed the road and kept going, right through the spot where Charlie’s Record Store stood in the living world. Maggie measured their paces against the mental map of Northtown she’d created during her three decades of living there. Now they were in the narrow alleyway behind the record shop, then into Monacelli’s Pizzeria and out its front door onto Miller Street. The mist obscured it all, denying Maggie one last glimpse of her old haunts before she entered the Great Beyond.

“Watch your step,” Death advised as she placed her foot on an invisible stair and rested her hand on an invisible railing. “We’re almost there.”

As Maggie and Death climbed higher, the mist thinned, revealing the staircase’s tight twists and turns. When they reached the top of the spiral, they found themselves in a small, dark foyer. A set of wooden doors, ornately carved and inlaid with gilded bronze, took up most of the far wall. Death walked over and opened them with a cheery “After you!”

The doors let them into a corridor so long that Maggie couldn’t see its end and so tall that it had its own weather. Fluffy clouds floated high above the pearlescent floor, casting shadows on the jewel-toned walls and the people going about their heavenly business. In her housecoat and slippers, Maggie felt shabby amidst all the finery. A man in a tailored grey suit smiled at her as he walked by. Two women in bright saris stood near one of the many doors lining either side of the hall, chatting and laughing. 

Quite a few people didn’t seem to belong to any one time or place. They looked like they didn’t belong in the real world at all. Maggie spotted a gaggle of haloed, white-winged, robe-clad angels up ahead, looking like they’d walked out of a Sunday School lesson and were on their way to choir practice. A person in a whimsically impractical suit of armor guarded a metal door. There were capes, gowns, and feathered hats in abundance, along with more modern accessories like jetpacks and space helmets. Scripture and fairy tale and pulp adventure had all come to life. 

A gruff voice further down the hall called, “Reaper woman!” Death grabbed Maggie by the hand and half-guided, half-dragged her toward the speaker.

He was short, the crown of his bald head reaching only to Maggie’s shoulder, and bony. His white beard fell to his knees, and bare feet peeked out from beneath the hem of his grey robe. The man was clearly old, and Maggie suspected he was in fact unfathomably ancient, yet his eyes twinkled and his handshake was firm.

“Hello, Charon,” Death said. “Meet Maggie Githens.”

“Twentieth century?” Charon asked, nodding in Maggie’s direction.

“Late eighties,” Death confirmed. “In case you couldn’t tell by this ridiculous getup. ‘Power dressing,’ my fanny! Maggie dear, I’m sorry people in your time have to look like this to be taken seriously.”

Maggie shook her head. “In certain circles, at least. I got away with more sensible attire at the school, thank goodness.”

Charon chuckled. “I think you’ll find the Archipelago far less fussy than nineteen-eighty-whatever. Six-Fifty is expecting you, by the way.” 

“Lucky you!” Death beamed, playfully slapping Maggie’s arm. “She’s the best of the best. Thanks, Charon.”

“Good luck,” the old man said with a wink.

Once Charon was out of earshot, Maggie asked, “Why did he wonder if I was from the twentieth century? He must know what year it is.”

Death smiled, her black eyes full of mischief. “He does, but there is so much more to time than one year following another. My advice to you? Get comfortable outside the bounds of strict chronology.”

Before Maggie could ask Death what that meant, the older woman stopped in front of a yellow door and knocked. 

“Coming!” said a voice on the other side. The door opened with a  _ click _ . “Right on time!” Six-Fifty said approvingly, tapping the small clock she wore around her neck. Her beehive hairdo wobbled slightly as she waved her guests into the office.

“I’ll wait out here,” Death said, and when Maggie’s fear showed on her face, added, “Don’t look at me like that, dear! You’re in good hands.” 

The travel agent’s office resembled the one Maggie had gone to when she booked her trip to England seven years ago (or goodness-knows-how-long ago, if Death’s cryptic comments were anything to go by). Beige walls, dark green carpet, brown leather chairs. It could have passed for Northtown, were it not for the absence of windows and the unusual posters hanging on the walls. They weren’t advertisements for specific cities or countries, but for years. She read them silently.

_ 537 - Visit Justinian and Theodora’s glittering imperial court at Constantinople! _

_ 1259 BCE - Marvel at the monumental temples of Ramesses II! _

_ 1211 - See Saint Francis preach a sermon to the birds! _

_ 1005 - Experience court life in Heian Japan, where Murasaki Shikibu wrote the world’s first novel! _

_ Something for everyone, _ Maggie thought. 

“Please have a seat, Ms. Githens,” Six-Fifty said, stepping around the desk and sinking into a swivel chair. “Would you like tea, coffee?”

Maggie sat down opposite Six-Fifty. “Coffee sounds wonderful. Black, please.” She’d barely finished speaking the words when a mug appeared on the desk.

“Thank you,” she said, and took a small sip.

“My pleasure. Now where did I put that brochure?” Six-Fifty riffled through her desk drawer, muttering to herself. Her clock ticked. Maggie stole a glance at it while Six-Fifty worked. With her smart suit and makeup, the agent looked otherwise normal, albeit a little behind Maggie’s time, style-wise. Maggie wondered why Six-Fifty didn’t just wear a watch, but then she saw it. The clock wasn’t an accessory. It was set in the woman’s body, like a jewel in a ring.

“What the hell?” Maggie whispered.

“Excuse me?” Six-Fifty said, not looking up from her task. “Is there a problem?”

“No,” Maggie replied. She took another sip of coffee.

The agent said, “A-ha!” and handed Maggie a brochure. Its front leaf showed an aerial view of the fabled Archipelago, tiny green islands dotting the silver-blue sea. Across the top was written Maggie’s lifespan: 1934-1988. She had been a couple of months shy of fifty-five when she died.

“Let me explain how this works,” Six-Fifty began. “Did my colleague give you the basics on the Archipelago?”

“Yes.”

“Then we can get right to the point. Both souls and time need a place to go when they pass, and the Archipelago provides an elegant solution!” Six-Fifty clapped her hands, as if that were the most delightful idea ever imagined. “Each Old Year rules their own island, where time stands still in their year forever. When a new soul arrives in the Archipelago, they choose one of those islands to live on. That’s your next step. As the brochure indicates, you may pick any year falling within your mortal lifespan.”

That gave her plenty to choose from. She opened the brochure to an image of FDR delivering one of his famous fireside chats, next to a series of World War II photos, including the one of the famous kiss in Times Square. Maggie had been a child during the war. She remembered her mother handing ration stamps to the grocer and her father listening to the radio obsessively. A schoolyard friend’s older brother, drafted and sent to Europe, who never came home.

“Fold it, and unfold it again,” Six-Fifty instructed. Maggie did so, and this time the brochure brought her back to her own young adulthood. Cars lined up for a drive-in movie. Elvis shook his pelvis in front of an adoring crowd. A scene of some young people enjoying burgers and milkshakes in a diner made Maggie long for Irving’s, while the one of the smiling families in front of their cookie-cutter suburban homes reminded her of why she loved the city.

Six-Fifty said, “Some good choices in the fifties. But I must warn you away from 1954. How shall I say this? We’ve had some problems with that year, and the people who choose to live there. For reasons we do not yet understand, it tends to attract those who hold, ahem, outdated views. If you catch my drift.”

Maggie nodded. She lived through 1954, and she knew exactly what Six-Fifty meant.

She folded and unfolded the brochure so that it showed her the 1960s, illustrated in the same collage fashion as the previous decades. President Kennedy gave one of his legendary speeches. Protestors marched in the streets, holding aloft a banner that read, “End the War in Vietnam.” Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. addressed a crowd of thousands. A rocket roared into the sky, trailing flame.

Maggie paused. She ran a finger over the glossy paper of the brochure. “How do I get this thing to show me a specific year?”

“State the year you want, then fold and unfold, as you’ve been doing,” said Six-Fifty.

“1963,” Maggie said softly. She closed and opened the brochure and saw her twenty-nine-year-old self, eyes wide with shock. It was the day of Kennedy’s assassination, and she had been sitting in her usual spot at Irving’s Diner when one of the dishwashers ran out of the back room shouting “The President’s been shot!” The news had just come over the radio, which Teddy ordered the kid to bring out so the patrons could listen. Maggie would never forget the look on her friend’s face as reality hit him.  _ You’d have thought that someone shot his own son _ , Maggie mused. 

The memory of Teddy gave Maggie an idea. “Six-Fifty, can you look someone up and tell me what year they’re in?”

“Of course! It makes perfect sense you’d want to live on the same island as your loved ones. I’ll need their name and date of death. Who did you have in mind, a spouse? Parents?”

Maggie didn’t answer right away. She had never married, never had any interest at all in romantic relationships. As for her parents - well, she preferred to stay as far away from them as possible, and she didn’t care to dwell on the why.

“A friend. His name is Theodore Irving, date of death September 5th, 1979.” Had it been that long? 

“Give me one moment.” Six-Fifty snapped her fingers, and a computer appeared on the desk, its screen facing away from Maggie. The machine’s boxy monitor hid the agent’s face as she typed in Teddy’s information. “It’s searching...got it! Mr. Irving resides on the island of 1969.”

Maggie commanded the brochure to show her that year, and it brought forth astronauts walking on the Moon, the massive audience at Woodstock (she thought the festival looked like fun, but doubted the school would have approved of a teacher attending), Nixon getting sworn in, more antiwar protests. At the bottom right corner, an image of her and Teddy, at the diner’s counter, deep in conversation. Tears welled in Maggie’s eyes. She set the brochure down on Six-Fifty’s desk.

“Do you need a moment?” the agent asked, concerned.

“No, it’s alright,” Maggie said. “I’ve made my decision. Please book my ticket to 1969.”

“Very good.” Six-Fifty snapped her fingers again, and the computer disappeared, replaced by a black rotary phone. She lifted the receiver and dialed a number. When the person on the other end picked up, she said, “This is Agent Six-Fifty. Ms. Githens has selected 1969. Is there a Time Captain available to escort her? Giovanni? Excellent. I’ll send Ms. Githens down right away. Goodbye.” 

Six-Fifty hung up the phone, walked around her desk, and shook Maggie’s hand. “Welcome to the Archipelago!”

“Thank you,” Maggie replied.

“My colleague will escort you to the dock,” Six-Fifty said, holding the door open. Maggie stepped out of the office and stopped short. The fabulous corridor was gone. Six-Fifty’s office door now opened into a light-filled lobby, ringed with towering columns and crowned with a stained-glass dome. 

“Ready to go?” asked Death, emerging from behind a column. She’d traded in her business suit for a long-sleeved black gown accented with shimmering onyx beads, and wore her hair pulled back in a fancy knotted bun. Maggie had thought it pure white before, but now noticed a streak of flaming red above Death’s right temple.

The older woman led Maggie down a flight of stairs, through an open set of doors, and down more stairs to a wooden dock. Roped to the dock was a sailing ship with a small cabin. A pale man in a long blue tunic stood next to the ship, waving. 

Maggie greeted him, “Hello, Captain.”

“I am Giovanni Contanto, at your service,” the man said.

Maggie noticed something odd about his voice. It sounded like two people were talking at the same time, in different languages, one much quieter than the other. “Is he speaking Italian?” she asked.

“A medieval Venetian dialect. You’re hearing him in twentieth-century American English, and he’s hearing you in his own language. A universal translator - one of the Archipelago’s many nifty features. You have a lot to see, my friend. But I’m afraid you’ll have to see it with somebody else. This is where I leave you.” Death gave Maggie a quick hug, then whispered, “You’ll be alright.”

“I hope so,” Maggie said.

She walked carefully up the little folding staircase and accepted a crewman’s hand as she leapt onto the ship’s deck. Giovanni followed her, and the dockhands took the stairs away. 

“Lower the sail!” the captain ordered. Two sailors - one an average-looking human and the other a clock-person like Six-Fifty - did as directed, and Maggie saw that the sail was a leaf from their destination’s calendar:  _ JULY 1969 _ . 

A gust of wind, so perfectly directed that it had to be magic, filled the sail. Maggie waved goodbye to Death, who waved back from the dock, and then they were moving faster, sailing into the mist, toward Maggie’s new home.

* * *

The ocean of time was mercifully calm as Giovanni and his crew navigated around the islands of past years. Now and then they spotted a stretch of shoreline, and one of the sailors identified it for Maggie. They passed 475, 1181, 2237 BCE, 1926 - the Old Years picked their respective domains with no regard for chronological order. Maggie supposed it was easy to get lost at sea here. If you didn’t know exactly where you were going, then there was no telling  _ when _ you’d end up.

“Ms. Githens, come and see,” Giovanni called from the ship’s bow. “We are almost there.”

A group of tall structures were visible on the horizon, thin silhouettes against the sky. As the ship approached the island, they grew more distinct. Maggie saw that they were made of metal, glinting in the sunlight, casting long shadows. There was a small city near them, perhaps the size of Northtown, with a large park on its outskirts. 

Giovanni handed her a pair of binoculars. She peered through them and saw people lounging in beach chairs or on blankets in the park. A man stood on a stage in front of the crowd, tuning a guitar.

Still holding the binoculars, Maggie shifted her gaze back to the metal towers. One of them had something else next to it, tall and grey-white and pointed at the top. A rocket, Maggie realized. She was looking at a launch complex. She handed the binoculars back to Giovanni, gripped the railing with both hands, and stared at the island growing closer by the second.

The ship sailed into the harbor. A dockhand tossed a rope to one of the crew, and they secured the vessel. Two men brought a short staircase over and propped it against the ship’s side. “All clear!” one of them shouted.

Giovanni acknowledged the man with a wave, then turned to Maggie. “We are ready to disembark,” he said. “Welcome to 1969.”


End file.
